Pod Save America - “Coronavirus doesn’t watch Fox News.”

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic worsens and markets tank, Trump downplays the crisis and bungles the response, and Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders face off in another six states on Tuesday. Then North Carolina Senate candidate Cal Cunningham talks to Jon F. about his race to replace Republican Thom Tillis and flip the Senate. And the hosts of Crooked Media’s new podcast Hall of Shame, Rachel Bonetta and Rachna Fruchbom, talk to Jon L. about their first two episodes.Want some 2020 pep talks, the most important things to do/know, and the occasional dog pic? Shoot us a text at [phone].

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, a conversation I had on Friday with Cal Cunningham, who's running against Tom Tillis for the North Carolina Senate seat that could give the Democrats the majority and cost Mitch McConnell his job as majority leader. I like him. I like the cut of his jib. He's great. And I don't have this in the outline, but also news today, Steve Bullock is

officially in. So Montana also in play now. Let's go. Hey, real quick, though. Shout out Chuck Schumer, who clearly made a lot of these recruits get in the game. Chuck got his men and women. We got to give Chuck some credit where credit is due. But first, before that, we're going to talk about the Trump administration's frighteningly incompetent response to the rapidly spreading coronavirus. And we're going to take a look at this Tuesday's showdown between the last two Democratic candidates standing, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Love it. How was the show this weekend? We had a great, love it or leave it, looking at Super Tuesday and everything else that happened with Yasser Lester and Megan Gailey it was a cathartic

drunken experience check it out that sounds great it's what happened they cut the part where I lay down on the ground I was in a headspace it was a strange week yeah that is a weird week also some exciting news the first two episodes of our new sports podcast

Hall of Shame are out today subscribe now and make sure you stick around for the end of this episode where you can hear a short interview love it had with the show's hosts rachel bonetta and retch and a fruck bomb it's a it's an awesome show and if you don't believe me and just listen to how funny and smart uh these hosts are when we talk to them it's great i think it's gonna's going to be a hit. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Okay. Let's start with the latest on the coronavirus outbreak. The global pandemic has now affected more than 100,000 people and killed 3,800.

Here in the U.S., we're now over 500 confirmed cases across 33 states with 20 Americans who've died. In northern Italy, the hardest hit place outside of China, the government has instituted a lockdown, which the leading U.S. official for infectious diseases said might have to happen in certain communities here. Probably less of a lockdown, but some social distancing. Dr. Anthony Fauci also recommended that the elderly and those with underlying health conditions avoid travel and large public gatherings. Meanwhile, global stock markets are collapsing over the economic impact of coronavirus, as well as an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. Trading was halted on Wall Street this morning after the market plunged 1,800 points at the opening bell.

I think right now we're around down 2,000 as we record this. And how is our president handling the crisis? Well, yesterday he was golfing after holding a press conference at the CDC on Friday where he said this. Anybody that needs a test can have a test. They're all set. They have them out there. In addition to that, they're making millions of more as we speak. But as of right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test, that's the important thing. And the tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect, right? This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good. I have great experts, including our vice president,

who's working 24 hours a day on this stuff. They would like to have the people come off. I'd rather have the people stay, but I'd go with them. I told them to make the final decision. I would rather because I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship. That wasn't our fault. Guys, initial reactions? I think it was a mistake to have Donald Trump be president during this crisis. There's so much back patting. There's so much congratulating for working hard. Yeah,

there's a global pandemic. It's kind of priced in. Yeah, go to the office. That'd be great. Yeah, look, the strange word association that, you know, obviously tests weren't available. That was a lie. They still aren't for anyone who wants them. Right. I mean, they are shipping, you know, a lot of tests now. There was a huge delay caused by the Trump administration's incompetence. The fact that his brain makes the word perfect come out to describe his conduct, and then he immediately goes to his perfect call, the perfect, you know, as we all know, the classic phrase, it was as perfect as my call with Ukraine, which is in a sense true. They're both, you know, historic blunders and a sign of deep

inherent narcissism and corruption. But yeah, no, I mean, it's a dystopian image, all of these people around Donald Trump praising him to the high heavens in the hopes that he might let them say something true. It's a small point too, but he's wearing a Make America Great Again hat during his CDC headquarters briefing, which is just probably illegal under the hat jack.

It's incredibly inappropriate and like, come on, man. But I mean, there are like, there's a couple of buckets of screw ups here. There are things that his technocratic scientific health leadership team did that were mistakes that set us back weeks. And then there's clearly a series of decisions that float from Trump's desire to downplay this pandemic that had a cascading effect that has left us in a terrible, terrible position to deal with this virus. And what has been also obvious at all these press events is he cares more about the economic impact because that has clear political consequences for him. So you have to imagine that the White House is panicking right now, watching the markets down 7% today, when on friday larry cudlow

has ripped from the cnbc green room economic advisor said now's a good time to buy the stock market dip because we have this thing contained yeah i think trump's saying that he didn't want the americans brought ashore from the cruise ship because he doesn't want the numbers to go up because he likes the numbers down i think that is indicative of how he has fucked up the entire response to this crisis, which is he only views it through the prism of his own political standing and how it's going to look. And so therefore, he continues to downplay the severity of the crisis because he's worried that he's worried what Tommy said about the economic implications, but also if it looks

like more americans have the virus that looks bad because trump told us of course a couple weeks ago that there were only 15 cases and it would be down to zero soon larry kudlow also said that it was being contained kelly and conway said it was being contained the administration's telling people it's being contained that isn't true i mean there's a couple of things he's done here right like there was a number of uh really greats of how the administration has handled this, mishandled this over the last couple of weeks in Politico. Dan Diamond wrote one there. And then in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Basically, the story is like, he yelled at experts who told him bad news. He doesn't want bad news. And so the staff is now, the administration

officials, the non-political administration officials are afraid to tell him bad news. He doesn't want bad news. And so the staff is now, the administration officials, the non-political administration officials are afraid to tell him bad news. They're conditioned. They're conditioned, right, because he doesn't want it. They said the test would be ready. They weren't. They were slow on the testing. They could have eliminated regulations that would have allowed private companies to do testing weeks and weeks ago. They just did it late last week. do testing weeks and weeks ago. They just did it late last week. So they were late there. And basically, if he had talked about the severity of the crisis earlier, hospitals, other health care facilities could have been prepared by this could have started buying more respirators, getting more hospital beds, more staffing. They could have been prepared earlier

than they have been. Yeah. I mean, like also personnel is policy, right? And so from the very beginning of this, technocratic leadership at places like CDC have been muzzled because they've been speaking hard truths. And then on top of that, the presidential personnel office is being filled with Trump fans, right? He just brought back his body guy who had been fired for some reason. He's now in charge. There's a report in Politico that the latest presidential personnel office hire is a 23-year-old college senior. That's how unserious they are about staffing the government with people who know what they're doing. Right. Apparently, Trump aides were mocking Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services Secretary, for being alarmist about this.

Mocking him because they're a bunch of children. Well, yeah, I mean, it's they were, you know, Trump has been furious at some of the career officials, you know, actual medical experts for telling the truth before getting ahead of the administration and being honest. Right. I mean, it's not just that when these people were saying it was contained, it was rosy, it was unknowable and not true. And it's because they were worried, not just they're not just thinking politically,'re not only thinking about pr they're thinking about pr in incredibly narrow and foolish and short-sighted way right even if you wanted even if you said okay they just want to think about the political implications and the and the public opinion all that stuff they're still doing it wrong yeah they're still doing it wrong i mean it's like you know let's say donald trump was

just all i care about is winning what do i need to do to win a a smart political person would say you need to be honest now to create the conditions for you to demonstrate that you're doing a good job managing this over the long term because the coronavirus doesn't watch lou dobbs and doesn't respect republican talking points so if you don't get ahead of this now everything you're doing to be rosy will make you look that much dumber in a week's time. It's what you said last pot, which is it's short termism, right? It's like, I just got to get through today and tomorrow and win this news cycle. And I don't have to worry about what's happening down the road. Like, so there was an AP report, a government official told the Associated Press that the White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly. So this story comes out. And of course, Fauci on Meet the Press

on Sunday basically gave that recommendation anyway. So the recommendation came out, but now they look like they covered it up because they did cover it up. Yeah. Containment buys you time. You can stop flights to China and maybe get yourself a couple of weeks before the outbreak grows. But any public health expert could have told you for months now that this was inevitable, that there was going to be a massive global spread of this disease. And so on top of what you guys were mentioning, I mean, when Congress first started talking about some sort of a package of funds to deal with this crisis, Trump literally made fun of Chuck Schumer at a press conference for proposing $8 billion when what he wanted was basically $2.5 billion, half of it stolen from other programs.

So from the very beginning, they've minimized this in very real ways that have had a cascading effect. And now here we are. And to tell you how bad that is, they passed the $8 billion. Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, found out that New York was only getting $35 million of the $8 billion and now he's pissed at even the bigger package that Democrats in Congress agree to because New York now has a crisis on their hands and they don't have enough money to handle it. And by the way, the debate about $2 billion versus $8 billion is going to seem like nothing when due to the mismanagement of the Trump administration,

we start talking about a massive stimulus to help the economy when people can't go to work, when kids can't go to school and parents have to stay home, when people have to cancel their shifts because they can't do food service work and they don't have any money to get them through the periods of time when they can't go to work or they're desperately trying to figure out if they can work when they're sick. Never mind all the associated health care costs. All the associated health care costs. Literally trillions and trillions of dollars in value of the stock market have just been wiped out. getting down on his knees and kissing Trump's feet and, you know, telling the dear leader how marvelous he was doing, said, thanks to President Trump, his actions have bought us time. Because even then they knew that what was coming was going to be really serious. And why is buying time so important? Well, we don't know how big the peak of this is going to be. But if you can

spread it out over time, maybe our healthcare system can have the capacity to deal with it. And because we have no idea how far this has spread, because there was so little testing, we do not know just how bad a position the administration has put us in, and that people who are sick may not be able to get the care they need in the emergency that may be coming. Hey, Lovett, you practiced social distancing in high school. Can you describe that to listeners? What was that? Yeah, well, basically what happens is a really cool girl waves at you, and you wave back and she says i'm waving at someone behind you and then repeat that every day for years some social distancing can be spent uh in a locker

or or a recycling bin or uh or playing uh mario 64 during your prom listen nothing wrong with that so there's another danger here which is that that because Trump is downplaying the crisis, his propaganda outlets are doing the same thing. Laura Ingraham said Democrats are using the pandemic to smear the administration. Sean Hannity said the left is rooting for the coronavirus. And Medal of Freedom winner Rush Limbaugh said the coronavirus is just like the common cold. Also, both CNN and MSNBC and MSNBC have run clips of Trump supporters outside a Trump rally saying that coronavirus is, quote, a ho segment of the American population who gets their news and information from propaganda outlets just doesn't take the proper steps and precautions because they don't believe it to be true. The Trump administration has been shitting on globalism for a long time. And there's a healthy dose of anti-Semitism in there. There's a bunch of nationalist,

you know, MAGA bullshit. But it's quite frustrating when you think about these challenges because it is a global world. and Republicans are willing to talk about targeting terrorist groups overseas so that they don't come here. Right. We need to apply that kind of approach to the logic when you're talking about global climate change or disease mitigation like this. But for some reason, it just gets demagogued and dismissed. And then on top of that, we have these insane conspiracy theories that are not inconsequential. Right. QAnon went from a thing that people scoffed at and mocked to omnipresent at Trump rallies. And then on top of that, we have these insane conspiracy theories that are not inconsequential. Right. QAnon went from a thing that people scoffed at and mocked to omnipresent at Trump rallies. And it's a deeply scary theory when you really dig into the details.

So I suspect these conspiracy theories are going to grow and get worse. It's also, you know, again, the coronavirus doesn't listen to Rush Limbaugh and Rush Limbaugh's audience, Laura Ingraham's audience, Sean Hannity's audience, these are older people. These are people whose immune systems are not receptive to these arguments. And, you know, Scott Gottlieb, who's a former FDA commissioner, I believe, gave a pretty chilling interview on one of the Sunday shows. By the way, former FDA commissioner under the first two years of Trump. Yeah. And he said, basically, this is not the flu. This is far more serious than the flu. And the inability of experts to overcome

what the right-wing media is trying to do inside the administration, outside of the administration is a genuinely dangerous and new aspect of how this is going to just make life worse for everybody. I mean, a few examples. Matt Gaetz mocked coronavirus by wearing like this big gas mask the other day. And, you know, one of the first people who died in Florida was in his district. CPAC, Conservative Political Action Committee, had their conference. And one of the attendees at CPAC is now tested positive for coronavirus. and Ted Cruz was there and had contact with the man and he's now self-quarantined

for this week. Paul Gosar, a member of Congress, a couple days ago tweeted, for a moment I thought Donald Trump created this virus in a secret lab in Wuhan. At least that's how the Democrats, hysterical Dems, make it sound. Remember when Obama brought in Ebola patients at good times? Now he is self-quarantined yeah so maybe we could take our job seriously right republican right like no one needs to no one needs to panic and we should just like listen to experts but we should like when the experts speak don't call it a fucking hoax and this we should talk about how the non-trump media is covering this too uh last week trump told this complete lie that the testing delay was

Obama's fault. And the New York Times headline was, quote, criticized for coronavirus response. Trump points to Obama administration. You have to get to the third paragraph. And even then, it just says, quote, it was not entirely clear what he was referring to. How should the media cover a president who's just lying to the public during a global pandemic? I don't think that's the right way. You know, when Donald Trump is flailing and making things up on the fly, you don't have to pretend that you just couldn't put enough researchers on the case to get what he was referring to. And, you know, one of the authors of that story, Peter Baker, famously talks about how how hard he works not to form his own opinions, to not even discuss political matters when he is in private, to not vote. And, Peter, if your mind is so open that your brain falls out of your head and into the fucking sewer, maybe there's just some utility to being a little bit critical of what you're told, given that you're the paper of the record and one of the most important places people get information about a ongoing pandemic. Yeah, I mean, I just think

on a normal day, just sort of uncritically repeating Trump's lies is shitty journalism. And it's you see it all the time, especially on social media feeds for news outlets, like Trump says that Obama, you know, killed an innocent innocent person. It's something ridiculous and just gets repeated. And we need to fact check it in the first instance, because it doesn't matter if you have one story in the paper that's just the crazy attack on Obama from Trump. But then the lead all is a bigger analysis about the way he lies. In this social media driven world, the Trump campaign can take the story that blames Obama and put a couple hundred thousand dollars behind it on Facebook and boost it to all these people. So when Trump is spinning like dangerous health information, I think we have an extra obligation to fact check that on the front end

or not even report it. You don't have to write crazy lies. He says a lot of crap. I realize it's important to cover what the president says, right? Of course you have to do that, but you don't have to cover every single word. You have to cover every single word you have to cover every single lie look and look trump's out there this morning he was having like a complete breakdown on twitter he's tweeting how many times like this is fake news everything's fine like it of course it is the job of the press in a time like this in the midst of a public health crisis to call that out like if not if that's not their job i don't know what is oh yeah i'd also just say too, like, well, what's the biggest story right now about, about Donald Trump? Is it what the, is it the, the precise attacks he launched today? There was one about

Elizabeth Warren. There was one about Chuck Schumer. There was one about Barack Obama. There's one about the fake news. There's one about lies about the market. There's one about gas prices. It was all this morning. What's the most important thing about what Donald Trump did today? Is it the substance of what he's saying? Or is it the fact of in the midst of a crisis, we have someone desperately looking for ways to blame others? To me, that seems to me to be the most important thing. And to protect himself. And to protect himself. That to me seems to be the most important thing, not in a partisan way, not an ideological way, just the fact of what we are going through, a global pandemic, the president is flailing and looking for someone to blame. Who he's blaming is such a second order concern compared to having an incompetent commander in chief trying to treat

this like a PR crisis. Yeah, the most important stories over the weekend were those TikToks that the New York Times did an excellent one and the Post and the Politico about all these administration officials who are trying to do the right thing and are afraid because Donald Trump is only concerned about his own political future that he's not listening to them. That's the most important story to know. I was in one of the stories, I believe it was the Times, looking at the mismanagement and decision-making process over the last few days. By the way, in that story mentioned in passing, that one of the key voices in making the decision as to whether or not to allow travel from China was Kellyanne

Conway. Glad she's on the phone case. That's really good to get her expertise. But also, it just included in passing that Trump's press conference at the CDC was rambling. And one of the hard parts, I think, about, and I don't begrudge the way in which reporters have to do this, is the need to just simply impose order on what Trump says sometimes hides just how lost and meandering his words have been in the past few days. And so like the imposing of a narrative on what Trump says, you know, even that Peter Baker story talking about, you know, Trump launching an attack against Obama, like his behavior has been erratic, hard to follow, misleading lies, contradicting experts who are standing right next to him. And that to me is a big part of this too. Let's talk about what Democrats

should be saying and doing here. Last night, Pelosi and Schumer put out a pretty strong statement hitting Trump for considering more corporate tax breaks, instead of things like paid sick leave for people who are sick or quarantined, expanded unemployment insurance, protections for healthcare workers, free testing and care for people who have the virus, more money for hospitals, et cetera, et cetera. What else do you guys think? How do you think Democrats should be handling this? I mean, if there is not a way for people who work hourly jobs to survive, to pay their rent, to put food on the table, to pay for childcare while they have this virus, they

are going to go to work. And we have no hope of preventing the spread of this thing unless paid sick leave is on the table. So I feel like that has to be the thing that Democrats absolutely go to the mat to fight for, not just aid to US energy producers. Because there's a whole separate problem happening right now that we haven't talked about. Over the weekend, the Saudis and the Russians got into a massive oil price war where the Saudis basically said, fuck you to OPEC. We're going to cut prices. We're going to increase output. And what they're trying to do is so thoroughly collapse the price of oil that U.S. energy producers just can't function anymore. So they drive them out of business.

So all the fracking and all the sort of ways that the U.S US has become energy independent recently go away. So that's happening in the background. And Trump's trying to tweet that that's good for the nation and that gas prices will go down. But in the long term, it's incredibly destabilizing. So what you're just seeing out right now is reporting that some of the latest ideas lead with aid to energy producers, support to small businesses, help the airline industry, which frankly, will probably have to get bailed out because who the hell is going to fly right now? But we have to help hourly workers first and foremost. Yeah. I mean, look, I think that no one should be rooting for a recession and obviously no one should be causing panic that is unnecessary. But in every way that is warranted, Democrats should take this up to an 11 here because you have a president who is massively mishandling a really serious public health crisis.

And also a president who now we could be headed into a recession and has no idea how to handle anything and is basically only thinking about everything through the lens of what's going to get me reelected in November. And is basically only thinking about everything through the lens of what's going to get me reelected in November. And he is sitting here talking about tax breaks for, you know, airline industry and for energy producers and all this other shit. When Democrats should be standing up for most of the workers and people in this country who could be hurt by this. Both from a health care perspective and from an economic perspective. And like, I have mean i think joe biden and bernie sanders should both be talking about this non-stop i think every candidate who's dropped out and is now a surrogate should be talking about this i think every member of congress should go on tv it's a competent argument basically he is incompetent these people are incapable of running the government yeah and

that should be everyone's message over and over again i I mean, he disbanded, because it was from Obama, the team that would have handled a pandemic inside the White House. He, in the midst of a period of time where there was absolutely no economic justification for it, passed a massive tax cut for the biggest corporations and the wealthiest people in this country that created a trillion dollar hole. And now, at a moment where we really may be in a crisis, where we really may need the government to step in, they have already pulled a bunch of those levers. And now they're going to try to do it again to pay another corporate tax cut instead of paid leave, instead of just help for people, tax rebate, what have you, but that their first instinct is to protect the airlines, protect the corporations instead of ordinary people

is despicable. Democrats should dictate the demand, what's in the stimulus yeah um and they should because there's going there's probably going to be a bigger package uh debated and trump's going to try to just do the bare minimum for most people in this country and try to do whatever it takes to sort of calm the stock market and democrats should you know it's good that schumer and pelosi got out ahead of this last night and democrats should be demanding all of those uh priorities in any kind of recovery stimulus, whatever you want to call it, package that comes and not move on that. Yeah. And just one thing I love to say. So after the Ebola crisis in 2014, Ron Klain, who coordinated that response, told President Obama, hey, you probably shouldn't hire someone

like me every time there's a pandemic, right? We should have a full-time person who works on this, who prepares because a pandemic response is a global effort that requires the entire government and requires dealing with foreign governments, et cetera. So they created a person on the National Security Council and a team there that handled pandemic response. Trump got rid of them, right? On top of that, there have been, there's been budget after budget of CDC cuts. So there's the near term fuck ups. And then there's this much more probably impactful long term gutting of public health infrastructure, gutting of a program that was designed to identify diseases that jump from animals to humans that was set up during the Bush administration. They got rid of that. That one feels a little on the nose to me.

Yeah. Maybe a bad idea in hindsight. Not to mention, by the way, desperately trying to throw people off their health care by trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act in the midst of a moment where what we need is for everyone to be able to access care. Which, again, Democrats, you know, are in a position to be talking about. This should be the whole story. And everyone should get on TV and be talking about it. Absolutely. You know, and I think talking about it more than we're about to talk about sort of the differences between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, which, of course, we have to talk about. We're in the middle of this primary. But I do think, you know, if you're a Democrat out there, if you're on Twitter, you're going on TV like that, you should be talking about what is a massive public health and and growing economic crisis.

And it goes to Trump's mismanagement of it. And it does go to to a broader vision and difference between what Trump offers and Democrats offer. Put crisis aside, when people get sick and have to go to work, that is a problem all the time. All the time. It is a problem every flu season. It is a problem every cold season. And we just ignore it. And we can't. All right. Let's talk about the Democratic primary, which is down to just two candidates, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. The two men will compete on Tuesday in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington state, where 352 delegates are up for grabs.

Sanders is favored in Idaho and North Dakota. Biden is favored in Mississippi and Missouri, while Washington and Michigan are competitive, though a few polls out today with huge Biden leads show that might not be true anymore. a few polls out today with huge Biden leads show that might not be true anymore. The former vice president has around a 90 delegate lead on Sanders, and they're still counting votes in California. Guys, what kind of wins does Bernie need to narrow Joe Biden's delegate lead right now? I think he needs to win over 50% of all the remaining delegates, right, to win. Yeah, I think it was at 55 last time. Yeah. And so that's why these these numbers today are a huge problem for Bernie Sanders. I mean, the challenge is in some of the biggest states, if you win delegates out of Mississippi, which puts it on par with a Texas victory or it's a couple, it's not that many delegates away from the California victory. So Biden could rack up a huge lead here. I did a little math. I played around with

the delegate calculator on 270 to win. So Bernie could pick up about 40 delegates if he wins Michigan and Washington by 10 points, which would be hard, but let's give him the, this is the best outcome for Bernie. He wins Michigan and Washington by 10 points and North Dakota and Idaho by 40 points because they're smaller states. He has a bigger lead there, right? So then he would pick up 40 delegates. But then Joe Biden can also pick up 40 delegates by winning Mississippi and Missouri by his current polling margin. And so that means we would end the day with Biden still 90 delegates ahead because it would be a wash.

And that's like one of the best cases scenarios for Bernie. So you can start to see and we talked about this before Super Tuesday. You can start to see why building even a modest delegate lead early in a Democratic primary with proportional allocation of delegates, it becomes really hard to catch the delegate leader. And this is why we thought Bernie Sanders might come out of Super Tuesday with an insurmountable delegate lead, even if it was only 100 or 200 delegates over the next candidate. Right. And that would have been a challenge for any candidate. It's even it's an even bigger challenge for Bernie Sanders when the states that follow Super Tuesday are more demographically favorable to Joe Biden. I mean, it seems like the worst two states he's got coming is Florida on the 17th, where he's pulling very poorly. And then Georgia a week later, which, you know, if it votes like all the other southern states, he's going to have trouble. Yeah. And for what it's worth, the 538 model currently gives Biden an 88% chance of winning

a majority of pledged delegates. That is a massive swing from where we were before Super Tuesday. There was enormous strength for Joe Biden among African-American voters in a lot of these states, and then a very rapid consolidation for Joe Biden among late deciders. And it seems like the Sanders campaign is going after Biden on a whole bunch of fronts, social security, a bunch of previous votes. But it's unclear to me what's sticking. And frankly, making something stick, getting people's attention in a media environment that is dominated by coronavirus seems challenging as well. Yeah. So let's talk about Bernie's strategy. He ditched an event in Mississippi and was focused on Michigan over the weekend where he was endorsed by Reverend Jesse

Jackson. He's also been running ads and giving speeches, as you mentioned, Tommy, that focused mostly on Joe Biden's record on Social Security, NAFTA, Iraq, LGBT rights and women's reproductive rights, essentially pointing out that Biden's past positions as a senator aren't in line with the mainstream of the Democratic Party today. What do you think about that strategy? I think it's half of what we've been talking, we've been talking about this for a while. I mean, you know, he's launching a pretty hard, you know, a contrast against Joe Biden. But the other half of that is a broader message to appeal to more people than what he's appealed to so far. And I don't know that we've seen that. I also,

at this point, you know, in the week before Super Tuesday, everyone was like, we are heading towards Bernie Sanders likely having a delegate lead coming out of Super Tuesday. But there was a lot of things we couldn't foresee and things we weren't seeing. And so Joe Biden wins South Carolina. There's this incredible consolidation, and he performs incredibly well, surprising everybody with just how well he does on Super Tuesday. You know, we're about to have another set of votes tomorrow and in the days that follow. And it seems to me that what we are talking about is whether or not there's another big change that we're currently not seeing.

That's all. And if there is, Bernie Sanders can do this. If not, I don't, doesn't, the message, the direction, the strategy seems to me almost beside the point. It's been very hard to get people to worry about old votes. I think it's likely that most people who are going to the polls know that Joe Biden supported the Iraq war. And to date, that hasn't really impacted their votes, seemingly. You know, and I do think if you dig deep enough in someone's past, they've said things that make them seem inconsistent or out of step with current times.

And I think voters intuitively understand that. There's some allowance for tacking to the middle in a general election. And I think we're seeing that. I mean, people think they know Joe Biden. He was Barack Obama's vice president. They like him. They think he's nice. They know his family story.

That can, I think, go a lot further, especially on voters who aren't paying attention day to day, hour to hour, than dredging up old votes. I'm not saying it's out of bounds for Bernie Sanders to do that. They absolutely should talk about policy contrast. I'm just wondering about the efficacy. Yeah, I think it is completely fair of Bernie Sanders to talk about Joe Biden's record, 100 percent. On Social Security, for example, you know, he's running a clip of Joe Biden in 1995, talking about a 1984 proposal that he had to freeze Social Security spending for a year. And then, you know, other times in Joe Biden's career, he's talked

about perhaps raising the retirement age or stopping sort of cost of living increase, slowing cost of living increases for Social Security. You know, the tricky part about that is a couple of things. The Biden campaign can point to, and they have many, many votes over Joe Biden's long career where he has not only protected Social Security, but expanded it, even though he's talked about making these modifications that you can certainly classify as cuts. And sort of what Tommy was saying, you know, if Joe Biden had just been a senator for his whole life and then was running for president, it might be easier to point to all of his old Senate votes and have them stick. But there was this thing in between where he was Barack Obama's vice president for eight years.

And most Democratic voters, you know, saw Barack Obama as plenty liberal enough, plenty progressive enough. And Joe Biden was his vice president and agreed with him on just about every, in fact, on LGBT rights, got out ahead of Barack Obama on gay marriage, you know. So I just think it's totally fair for Bernie to go down this road. But it is, I wonder how it will be able to stick. Yeah, I mean, I do think, I think it's actually fair on a number of levels. I actually think the deeper critique of Joe Biden, which I think is what undergirds this, is also completely fair, which is Joe Biden has been for a very long time a consensus Democratic politician, well within the

mainstream of where the party is. And where the party has been is to the right of where the party is today and where Bernie Sanders has always been. Bernie Sanders has been saying for a very long time, we're too far right on this issue, on social security, on health care, on what have you, on trade. And Joe Biden has been where the party is. The issue right now is where the party is has moved to the left in part because of the leadership of Bernie Sanders over the last four years. And so the problem... Well, the other problem is Joe Biden has moved with it. Yes, that's what I'm saying. He is where the party consensus is.

He is the consensus candidates. Why all these people got behind him? And where that consensus is kind of answers the Bernie critique. He can just say, in the same way that Joe Biden can say to Bernie, you had these terrible gun votes, and Bernie can say, but now look where I'm at. Biden can say, oh, you had these... Bernie can say, you've had these terrible Social Security votes. And Biden can say, well, look where I'm at. Biden can say, oh, you had these, you know, Bernie can say you've had these terrible Social Security votes and Biden can say, well, look where I'm at. Yeah. Now, one thing that Bernie can do and he has done, but maybe not as much, at least

that I've noticed over the last week, is use those, use his positions and Biden's positions to make more of an electability case and say, look, we want someone running against Trump who has a clear case on, you know, I've supported Social Security and wanted to expand Social Security my entire career. Donald Trump wants to cut it. And it's not as clean of a case if you have Biden who has some of these votes. Right. And I still think, I mean, it's a little harder to make that case, but, you know, it's an electability case. And again, as we've seen from all the results so far, electability is on people's minds. And so whatever sort of electability case you make and everyone can make different cases, it ends up being important to voters.

Yeah, I think if Bernie Sanders went out and said, I can make an argument against Donald Trump on trade that is clean and clear and direct to the American people that I think will help me win, that's powerful. I think he can say, I have a cleaner record on Social Security, though not perfect, than Joe Biden, and I'll make that fight against Donald Trump. That may be effective. I think it requires focus. I think when you attack someone on everything, lots of old votes, it can feel like a kitchen sink strategy. And then it's just worth noting that Bernie's online supporters, the Bernie Sanders aligned media is going after Biden in much shittier, more personal ways that are much less founded in fact. So there is this cacophony of attacks on Joe Biden happening right now. And like it can feel like a wash. Yeah, so that that's the other strategy that's coming from Bernie's campaign is basically contrasting his fitness for the job with Joe Biden's.

Over the weekend, Bernie's campaign manager, Fash Shakir, tweeted, quote, for the job with Joe Biden's over the weekend. Bernie's campaign manager, Fash Shakir, tweeted, quote, Bernie has three public events just today in two different states, each speaking engagement extending for close to an hour. This was in response to a report that Biden only spoke for seven minutes at a campaign rally in St. Louis. And in response to a new DNC debate rule that would have both Biden and Bernie seated, Bernie's campaign advisor, Jeff Weaver, said, quote, why does Joe Biden not want to stand toe-to-toe with senator sanders on the debate stage march 15th bernie was later asked by jake tapper if he thinks biden isn't up to the task of being president and bernie said he believes he is up to the task and said he believes that biden can beat trump so is this a wise fight for the

campaign to have here bernie knows the. He does. And Bernie understands what's at stake. And I say this not as an advocate for Joe Biden, but for someone who's now looking at a situation where Joe Biden is more likely than Bernie Sanders to be the nominee. You know, we are all playing sort of with live ammo. And, you know, it's the flip side. So, you know, Bernie says, look at Joe's old position on Social Security. And Joe says, here's where I'm at now. There's a kind of phalanx online that says Joe Biden doesn't really mean it. Right. What he really means is he wants to cut Social Security. And this is sort of the is Joe Biden up for the job version of that debate. Right. Bernie's going to say he is. There's going to be a bunch of people online that says he isn't. And to me right now, it's like we have these two candidates and they both have strengths and they both have incredible weaknesses. They're going to go

toe to toe. And if what Bernie Sanders wants to do is say, you should have buyer's remorse. Joe Biden is too weak to do this job. He is unable to give the kind of direct message speeches. He is not doing enough public events. He's lost a step. You can't trust him to be the one to get us over the mantle. It is another version of the critique he's offering now on personality, now on fitness. But it still leaves open this question as why now, right at the end, do we have a bunch of people desperately trying to find a safe place for their vote, not seeing Bernie Sanders as the safe place to put that vote. The other thing is 15 million people watched the last Democratic debate where Joe Biden stood there for two hours and debated and a lot of people thought debated well. And then on Super Tuesday, so far 4.8 million people voted for Joe Biden, which was about a million more than voted for Bernie Sanders. The idea that this is somehow

hidden from people, right? We have seen a lot of Joe Biden speeches. I have seen a lot of Joe Biden speeches over this campaign. And usually they're way too fucking long. We've been the ones saying we want to hear a tight message speech. And I have to say, I looked and yes, at the St. Louis event, he gave a seven minute speech. In Kansas City later in the day, it was an 18, 19 minute

speech, right? So there's one speech that we're talking about here. And then on the debate thing, this was CNN and the DNC that decided these debate rules that now that there's down to two competitors, they would sit down. David Plouffe pointed out online that in 2008, three of the four one-on-one debates between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were seated debates. It just happens. So it's like, again, all three of us have criticized Joe Biden's debate performances many, many times throughout the course of this primary. But like, I don't think we should be now looking for random things like a debate rule and a one seven minute speech to sort of make the argument. Yeah, listen, I've watched the Joe Biden debate performances several times, and it's made

me cringe. I worry more broadly about his message discipline. I think the week leading up to South Carolina showed a different candidate that was far more impressive. But, you know, I also think the discussion around does our candidate have the stamina to be on the campaign trail all day every day is a fair thing to discuss and something that's important. But what's happening online is very different. People are circulating selectively edited clips to argue that Joe Biden is somehow not up for the job. And when you point out to them, hey, maybe we should ask the journalists who have been on the road with him every day for a year plus what they think, they say, fuck you. I know what I see with my own eyes because some random Twitter account with her, you know, tweeted it out. And I think that is a very gross way to approach politics. It's also, you know, Joe Biden has been a rambling gaffe machine for four decades. How old is he? 78? Seven decades. And he's also someone who has talked about his lifelong struggle with a stutter.

There was a very nuanced and thoughtful piece about this in The Atlantic. I'm not going to diagnose Joe Biden from afar, but I do think that the point that that piece made by someone who has struggled with this himself is maybe as he has gotten older, it has been, and he is tired and he's on the trail, he is overcoming his stutter once again. And for people to take all of that together and try to diagnose somebody from afar, I think is really irresponsible. It's gross. And also like you look, you know, sometimes you look at him and maybe he's having trouble reading off a prompter. And now I think all of us, a lot of Democrats in particular, have seen anecdotes that come out in books that say, Amorosa said that Donald Trump talks in

circular ways and repeats the same story every 10 minutes. And you wonder, like, is this guy sundowning? We've talked about it on the show. Other people have online. That's a different thing, though. If the closest people to Joe Biden were leaking anecdotes like this to newspapers, I'd be really fucking worried. I'd be talking about it. But when Biden sucks 420 is tweeting out some selectively edited clip that I find a little

distasteful. But again, it's just like, take it up with the Democratic voters, people. Like, you can't argue. Joe Biden was on stage seven times for two to three hours each time in this debate. Everyone has watched him this whole primary, and then they went and voted for him. They voted for him more than other candidates. One other point about this. I don't want to live in a gerontocracy where our final three choices are going to be a 78 year old, a 77 year old and a 73 year old fat fast food enthusiast who's never seen a treadmill. Like, I don't like that this is where we're living. But like, Bernie Sanders had a heart

attack pretty recently. You know, Donald Trump has been lying about his health results. We do not know how healthy Donald Trump is or isn't. Joe Biden is now facing these attacks from the left because he's now consolidated support and it looks like he may become the nominee. I'm sympathetic to everyone who's like, why are our candidates so old? But here we are. This is it. Here we are. This is it. This is what you got. And I keep saying back to the voters, this is one of the reasons that we all sort of stayed neutral in the primary too. back to the voters like this is one of the reasons that we all sort of stayed neutral in the primary too like we have to see what the voters decide and and and we have a primary process we have all these states voting everyone got all the information they needed from a lot of debates and a lot of

public appearances from all these candidates and this is how they are deciding and that's that's where we are you know um and so you know that was one fight that people were picking online. You know, Bernie was on ABC over the weekend, and he said, one of the things I was kind of surprised by was the power of the establishment to force Amy Klobuchar, who had worked so hard, and Pete Buttigieg, who really worked extremely hard as well, out of the race. First of all, a lot of love for Pete and Amy there. Yeah.

I just, I do have problems with this like that is not why amy klobuchar and pete butajedge dropped out of the race because anyone forced them to in fact pete butajedge said that this morning when he was asked on morning joe he said i looked at the math and i realized there wasn't a path and so i dropped out bernie usually doesn't talk that way it's usually his you know campaign allies that talk this way he's never usually not so willing to blame the establishment for the decisions of competitors. He has previously shown a lot of respect. He hasn't had a chance to. But look, I mean, he has to be really careful with comments like that, because like you said, John, Klobuchar and Pete can very quickly fact check you and speak for themselves for why they decided to

do what they do. But it also can sound a little condescending to voters who in many states have genuinely chosen Biden over Bernie. And I think you got to go bigger. Find a way to reach these people. Don't, you know, act like they were, their strings were pulled by some DNC operative in Washington. Tom Perez, you know, high above the stage, pulling the strings. I just think there are lessons for progressives to learn from this primary.

And I think one person who has clearly learned them and who's been talking about this is AOC. And she was at a rally yesterday in Michigan, and she started talking about how the progressive movement needs to be inclusive, and you need to build movements, and you need to add people, and you need to persuade, you know. And AOC, we should say, who, you know, over the weekend, in an attempt to practice what she preaches, there's the SNL video of Elizabeth Warren and Kate McKinnon. And AOC replies by saying, this is amazing or I love this or something like that, obviously trying to build bridges to Warren. She probably really did like it. It was fucking funny.

But also building bridges to Warren and her movement. And if you go look at the replies to AOC's tweet, it will make you want to destroy your phone forever. Maybe don't look. Just whatever. Let's hear John's summary. It was just like a lot of online folks on the left with fairly big followings

saying all kinds of horrible things to her for merely reaching out and saying something nice about Elizabeth Warren. It's, forget obviously there's all the ways in which it's toxic. But, you know, millions of people really like people who judge. Millions of people really like Amy Klobuchar. Millions of people really like Elizabeth Warren, really believed in her candidacy. Not in a kind of, in a deep and personal way.

And you can mock that and you can belittle that. But it certainly doesn't help draw people to your cause um and it doesn't make your movement seem inclusive and welcoming that's all yeah and look this isn't to like lecture anyone it is just like pure politics here right like if you just want to win the question you have to ask yourself is our movement so far bernie sanders has been hitting between 25 and 35 percent% in every state so far. And he's hit basically a ceiling at 35% and California was the highest he's gotten. So the question for the movement is how do we get above 35% next time?

How do we get to 40? How do we get to 45? Who do we need to talk to? Who do we need to persuade? Who do we need to bring in the movement? Just from a pure political standpoint. I don't care what people – I'm not offended. I don't give a shit.

You can send all the mean tweets to me you want. Call, you know, you want to tweet snakes and rats? Have a great time. Have a good time. It's a real zoo on there. But I don't, it doesn't help you. But like, I believe in progressive causes too. Like, I want progressive candidates who win.

I just want them to actually win. And by the way, like, Bernie Sanders is a broadly popular figure in the Democratic Party. The question I would be asking is, why does Bernie Sanders consistently poll with a 77, 80% approval rating among Democrats, but then only pull 25, 30, 35? What is the delta there between what people are willing to vote for and what people are willing to claim they believe in? And they haven't been able to close that gap. The flip side of this is that Joe Biden seemingly is not getting levels of support among young people that he needs. And so some people suggested over the weekend, a former Warren policy director and then Tom Perriello, a former member of Congress, suggested that Joe Biden consider adopting the Warren

Jay Inslee climate plan, which is a really major progressive approach to combating climate change. I think if Joe Biden could find an issue like that, that signals how deeply he cares about climate change, it makes it a priority in the first hundred days or less, that might go a long way. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a, yeah, I think it's a really, and by the way, one thing about that policy too, is it's, it's even, Joe Biden has already set pretty big goals. What he's actually saying is I'm going to do what Jay Inslee and Elizabeth Warren say, which I'm going to set really tough benchmarks to get us there. I'm going to demonstrate how committed I am to this. And it

doesn't involve him fundamentally altering his position at this point. Yeah, we should talk about how he's handling all this. Biden spent the weekend campaigning in Mississippi and Missouri. Tonight, he does a rally in Michigan, where he'll be joined by his newest supporters, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. What an event. The establishment forced them to Michigan tonight. Wow. Definitely got the last Bolt bus out of California. I was like, I thought you were going to go with New Jersey. Who among us hasn't taken a Bolt bus through New Jersey? Biden's also been endorsed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin. And his campaign has now made the largest campaign ad by the date 12 million dollars in digital and television ads in the big states

voting this tuesday and next tuesday it does seem like he is responding to these bernie attacks or these you know bernie discussing his record um basically by just you know he defended his right he had an ad defending his record on social security and then he said negative campaigning only helps trump he also said he suspects he'll have to respond to quote an increasingly negative campaign that the bernie brothers will run which is so funny they're those guys are plumbers no bernie brothers are plumbers the thing about the bernie brothers is you don't get that three for one suit deal but you get kind of like a boxy version you know you see it in dc a lot uh what were you gonna say to me that you i don't know all i can think about is how worried I am that we have these like three 70 year old people, including the president of the United

States campaigning as a pandemic just flourishes across the country. It seems completely insane to me. And that's where my brain is. When I watched Trump get off Air Force One today and start shaking hands in Orlando on the rope line, I was like, what are you doing, man? First of all, I thought he was supposed to be a germaphobe that's why you don't say overcoming his him being a germaphobe just to own the libs i guess is that what he's doing now in the media mike pence will pray away his illness he'll be fine but look i i do think that that biden's sort of response to all this by just saying he's basically just waving it off you should go like i'm gonna defend my record but i'm just gonna say i don't

want negative campaigning because you know we want to defeat donald trump and i i don't think i think he could go he could start talking about bernie's record but i sort of think he at this point if i were him i wouldn't do that it doesn't he doesn't need to make bernie lose he just has to prevent himself from losing he just has to and he needs to show some some grace to bernie's supporters and talk about bringing them in. And some of the policy stuff we talked about. Go big. Bring them in.

Debate format notwithstanding, I would be deeply frustrated if I were in the Bernie Sanders camp that this next debate isn't until after the contest this week. That's shitty timing for them. I feel for them. That stinks. That said, you know, it's not over. I feel for them. That stinks. That said, you know, it's not over.

There was some annoyance from them that the debate has gone from being a traditional debate format to a town hall format where they're taking questions from the audience. There's some questions from the audience instead of fully moderated questions. Yeah. I don't know why that would be worse or better. I was kind of confused by why you would. I just think it's hard in that context to get a question from a veteran who needs his benefits and is frustrated with the VA and turn that into an attack on the person next to you. It feels awful. I'm trying to think of how the second debate went between Trump and Hillary when it was a town hall. I can't remember. Remember their second one was a town hall?

Yeah, that's the one with the pacing. Oh, that was the lurking. That was the lurking Trump. They found a way to do it. was a town hall yeah that's the one that was the lurking that was the lurking trump they found a way to do it yeah well tradition right traditionally with when you're in front of actual people it's harder to uh just take out an uzi rhetorical uzi and obliterate thank you for your wonderful question about health care angela this fucking asshole this guy this guy over here i do wonder how this debate's gonna go especially like i mean if it's very close tomorrow and bernie ends up

doing like the best case scenario for bernie then you can see it being a traditional kind of debate down to two candidates where they really go after each other. And it's quite contentious. Right. And so if Biden does quite well tomorrow, like, you know, according to some of the polls, he is. Then I wonder what that last debate looks like if he's built up this big delegate lead. Yeah. I'm sure it'll be wonderful on twitter to follow along right i mean i think you know bernie it's it's you know bernie i think is torn by two uh two ideas one that he genuinely and sincerely believes he would be a better president yeah and deserves the opportunity to prove that and has been hamstrung by the media

and the process that's i think what they believe and i think he believes he's more electable too and believes he's more electable at the. And believes he's more electable, while at the same time recognizing that he understands that we're playing for everything and isn't going to do anything at this point to make Joe Biden unelectable. He won't. He just doesn't have it in him. And look, and for all the complaining about, you know, some folks on the online left, you're right. Bernie understands that. AOC understands that. A lot of the leaders of the progressive movement who are elected leaders totally understand that. And that's, you know, I think that's a good sign. 155 years of decency on that stage. Okay. On that note.

Quick math. When we come back, we will have my interview with North Carolina Senate candidate, Democrat Cal Cunningham. Yes, we Cal. Yes, we Cal. Watching our Cals. Let's do it. Yeah. I am now joined here at Cricket Headquarters by the Democratic candidate

for Senate in North Carolina, Cal Cunningham. Cal, welcome. John, glad to be on. Appreciate it. Good to have you. So for all of our listeners who might not know you, can you talk a little bit about your background and also sort of what got you into politics in the first place? Sure. Look, I grew up in the little town of Lexington, North Carolina, the pork barbecue capital of the world. Educated at UNC, undergrad in law,

slipped a master's degree in from London School of Economics in between, and went back to my home community after law school and was elected to the state senate when I was 27, representing a really swing part of North Carolina. Al Gore got about 40% of the vote in my precincts the same night I got about 54% of the vote. 27 years old. 27 years old, yeah. I mean, look, I grew up in church and scouting and youth group, believing in public service, believing in serving people. And I stumbled into an internship with Carl Levin on Capitol Hill in 1993. And I was struck by the opportunity to really serve people that way. And then you were a state legislator for a little while, and then you left and-

I did. Look, my district got chopped up in redistricting. Right. It was a court-imposed, very partisan redistricting. But September 11th had happened while I was in the Senate, and I joined the Army Reserve. I've done tours in Iraq, tour in Afghanistan, spent time at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, training special operations troops, and now at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Reserves. And what made you decide to jump back in? Jump back into politics? Yeah. Well, look, I'm a parent. I got two teenage kids. And really,

they would come home after school and say, Dad, the world is on fire. What are you going to do about it? My daughter, who is very passionate about animal welfare, like one morning, almost a year and a couple of months ago, we had sort of Morning Joe playing in the morning. We're supposed to get out the door to school, running late. I got drop off at school and my very reserved, but very passionate young daughter just got fired up and started yelling at the tv and she looked me in the eye and she said dad what are you gonna do to fix it and so she was radicalized by something on morning joe yes well the president had been up all night tweeting about like gutting the endangered species act or something and you know she looks at me but

you know this is my son and daughter walked out of school uh after parkland they put on black and walked out of school after parkland and they're on black and walked out of school after Parkland. And they're looking to me and Elizabeth, my wife, as their parents and saying, you know, what are we doing about this? And so, you know, there's I think the moral compass of our children right now is very true. And so this is part of how I respond to them to leave the world in a better place for them. They're about to inherit the world in a better place for them. They're about to inherit the keys to this country. And my sweet daughter, Caroline, turned 18 in January, and she and I walked into an early vote site a couple of weeks ago. And my answer to Caroline

is I'm at the top of your ballot. This is how we solve it. That's great. So you just won a pretty sizable victory over a primary challenger, Erica Smith. She did get about a third of the vote. And I saw some exit polls out of North Carolina that said majority of Democratic voters are for Medicare for all, for free public college. What did you learn from your primary? And how do you keep the folks who didn't vote for you energized and excited for November? Well, sure. Look, I mean, first of all, other really good people in the primary. It's a five-way race and they're very good-hearted people. I think that the primary made me work and it made us a sharper team. It put me in better touch with the electorate in North Carolina, made us run a campaign, which was good. You may know,

I mean, Mitch McConnell set up a super PAC and dropped into the middle of our primary, really, to create a lot of mischief. We can talk a little bit about that. But I would say, just to get to your question, I had to work and raised my profile with the electorate. We got 10.5 million people in North Carolina, had very nice turnout for a Democratic Party primary, about 1.3 million people, considerably higher than the Republican primary. And it gave me a chance to engage. And so we're already, you know, like, look, so the polls closed Tuesday night. I got up Wednesday morning and I kicked off a two-day tour across North Carolina, explicitly talking about the fact

that folks may have picked a different ballot. They may have voted Republican in that primary. They may have picked another candidate in my primary. Or as with the vast majority of people, they just sat it out. They didn't vote at all. And so I've got to get to them. I've got to go to them. And I didn't start my tour in blue North Carolina. I went straight into the heart of red North Carolina and kicked off like a seven or eight county tour. Let's talk about Tom Tillis. When you talk to folks in North Carolina, what do you find to be the most persuasive arguments about why he shouldn't be reelected? It really kind of boils down to this. He isn't putting North Carolinians first. He's decided something's more important. We see this in vote after vote. He's got a partisan interest that he's vindicating.

He's got political self-survival interests that he's trying to vindicate. And he is in lockstep with some special interests on Capitol Hill. And so time and time again, North Carolinians get to see him doing things for others and not doing things for us. And almost no better example than a year ago, he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, and he said, it's a simple matter of principle. No president should use the emergency powers to fund the border wall. And I remember reading that saying, well, you got one right, Tom. But then 10 days later, he walks onto the floor of the US Senate, and he says he says, I've had further conversations with my Washington friends and flips in what the Charlotte observers

had called an Olympic gold medal worthy flip-flop to give the president exactly that authority. So then the president starts rounding up money to pay for the border wall. Where does he get it? He gets it from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He gets it from an ambulatory medical facility at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, a barracks for Marines. He gets it from infrastructure at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. How much clearer example could you get of a senator who puts his own interests here hugging the president ahead of North Carolina?

It does seem like it's a bit of a sleeper issue, the president sort of funding his wall with just sort of taking money from everywhere else. I did some focus groups for another podcast I do, and I had a couple people in Milwaukee who were Obama Trump voters, and they were like, I just don't like this idea that he's trying to fund this wall by maybe taking money from my retirement or other, you know, factories in Wisconsin and stuff like that. So it is interesting that this is an issue that resonates that you don't hear people in the media talking about as much. Well, let me give it even more granular detail because Tillis has managed to do something that is remarkable even in this

day and age. So obviously Democrats and unaffiliated voters have a lot of skepticism about him. He's cut education. He's passed when he was Speaker of the House, did bad things on health care, has gone to Capitol Hill and voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, all the sort of bad acts that you would expect. But he's also managed to alienate Trump's people in North Carolina. So I can go to the state fair, as I did, and I'm at the Democratic Party booth, and it's all hugs and smiles and high fives and selfies. But I see the Trump booth across the way.

And this is the kind of candidate I am, this kind of Democrat I am. I went over and introduced myself to the Trump table. And I said, so what do y'all think of our junior senator, Tom Tillis? And these are their words, not mine. They say he's immoral and unethical. They say he flip-flops. He doesn't know who he is, and we don't trust him. And so, true to form, John, on Election Day, Tuesday, Tom Tillis got 140,000 fewer votes

in his primary than Donald Trump got right up the ballot from him. Wow. got right up the ballot from him. 140,000 Republicans knew Tom Tillis and decided to cast their votes for really nondescript other Republicans in that primary. That's pretty rough for Tillis. And so when Trump comes to North Carolina, he held a rally in Fayetteville. He held a rally in Greenville. He held a rally in Charlotte. He gets Tom Tillis up on stage with him. Trump's people boo Tom Tillis. That's interesting because he's not Trumpy enough for them. They don't trust him. They don't trust him. That's what it is. He flip-flops. Yeah. So let's talk about some of those Trump voters because if you're going to win in November,

obviously you're going to need some of those Trump voters. That's why I presume you started in a lot of those red counties. How do you run a campaign where you appeal to those Trump voters and also appeal to maybe some of those voters in the primary who, you know, voted for, you know, candidates that were more progressive or whatever else it may be? How do you sort of, it's a very diverse state ideologically as well. How do you sort of keep that coalition together? No, we're a swing state. We're very much a purple state. And by the way, when we win this one, we're taking the US Senate. I mean, this- Yeah, I was going to say, yours is the seat, man. John, I was going to say, you got North Carolina ranked as a second tier. No way, baby. Okay, all right. Oh, this is good.

I'm going to drop the gauntlet right here. In fact, I'll bet you a barbecue sandwich from Lexington Barbecue that at 10 p.m. my time on November the 3rd, which will be 7 o'clock here, you're going to turn on MSNBC. And you're going to see the Associated Press call this race in my favor. And when they do, the dominoes will fall all across the country. We're going to take the U.S. Senate. I love that. We don't do predictions here anymore after 2016, but that doesn't mean that you can't. So we have this now on tape, which is great. You do. This is the race that will decide it. Let me tell you how we get those voters.

We start by listening. And there are a lot of people, even Republicans, that don't feel like their voices are being heard on Capitol Hill. They see in a Tom Tillis somebody who is putting his own interests and special interests ahead of North Carolina's interest time and time again. And so I can tell a North Carolina story. It's a state that raised me. It's a state where I went to school. It's a state where I built an environmental company headquartered in Raleigh. I've served with Army troops from North Carolina.

I can tell a North Carolina story, and we do. But also, look, in a democracy, folks are going to disagree on the issues, and we can do it without being disagreeable. But it starts by listening. My aunt sis was an elementary school teacher. She raised me, she taught me to read at a very early age. She said, a good listener is a good learner. And in all my experiences in government and in business and elsewhere, I've also come to believe that a good listener is a good leader. And so it starts with engaging. And that's why I kicked off the Carolina Conversations Tour Wednesday morning, traveling across red North Carolina, just having

conversations with folks. We need to make sure all 10.5 million North Carolina voices are being heard on Capitol Hill, even though there are going to be disagreements on the issues. How much is the president part of your race? How much do you talk about Trump? I talk about Tillis. I'm focused on North Carolina. Look, I'm going to be ready to work with whoever the next president is. Obviously, I've got a strong set of personal beliefs about who that we need to change up what's in the White House today. But I got to be prepared to work with whoever's there. And so I'm very focused on North Carolina. You live in a state where Republicans have, you know, done everything they can to sort of wage war on democracy, whether it's gerrymandering,

whether it's some of the tricks they pull on Governor Cooper in the legislature. You know, if you get to the Senate, you'll obviously find that Mitch McConnell uses the same playbook. What are some sort of pro-democracy reforms you're interested in if you get to the Senate? Well, look, before I even get there, Tom Tillis is the guy who passed the law when he was Speaker of the State House that was struck down by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for targeting African Americans with surgical precision. He's a bad actor on this front. And Mitch McConnell himself has already, through his super PAC, has already waded into our primary, spent millions of dollars trying to beat me in the primary.

It's like a Hail Mary pass. He knows that in the head-to-heads between me and Tillis, which incidentally, two polls since just in the last week, plus five. Me. Yeah, some of the Marist polls. Marist and public policy polling just came out as well, plus five. Good government. This is at the heart of the conversation I polls. And public policy polling just came out as well, plus five. Good government. This is at the heart of the conversation I'm having with North Carolinians.

It's about corruption. It's about reforming our democracy and healing our democracy. First piece of legislation I'm going to file is an effort to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United. This unregulated dark money in our politics is exactly how independent group can come into North Carolina posing as a Democratic PAC, the Faith and Power PAC, to try to interfere in our own primary.

So we need to overturn Citizens United. We need to reenact Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. We ought to add partisanship as one of the things that's getting reviewed by the Justice Department. I want to see us end the revolving door on Capitol Hill and in and out of the administration. I've taken a pledge in this campaign not to take corporate PAC money. I think that's an important step in the right direction for how we re-establish the link between voters

and the folks that are being sent up there to represent us. And so just as I did in the state legislature, helping create a voter-owned elections program, just as I did in the state legislature, helping create a voter-owned elections program, just as I did in Iraq when I prosecuted corrupt government contractors and put a military contractor in a military court and prosecute them, we've got corruption problems on Capitol Hill, political and financial corruption problems, and I'm going to Washington to work on them. It said in the exit polls that the most important issue to voters was health care. Is that what you're hearing out there? I do, second only to corruption. Second to corruption. I mean, there are North Carolina local factors that you've identified

in the state legislature. I mean, we just had a special election in the 9th Congressional District because of sort of a vote-buying scheme. The largest donor to the state Republican Party was just convicted in federal court for trying to bribe the Republican insurance commissioner. So corruption is very top of mind in North Carolina. Second to that is healthcare. That's the most substantive issue. And so frankly, I talk about corruption as standing in the way of progress on healthcare, and that's part of the dialogue we're having. What do you think should be done on healthcare when you get to the Senate? We need to add a public option to the Affordable Care Act. We need to give Medicare the right to

negotiate for lower prescription drug costs and cap out-of-pocket costs, particularly for some therapies like insulin. And we've got asthma inhalers. Just the costs of prescriptions are really causing a big burden. There's a subsidy cliff in the exchange for use of subsidies to help bring those costs down. But I'll tell you one of the things North Carolina hasn't done. One of the tools in the Affordable Act toolbox is the Medicaid expansion. North Carolina hadn't done it. I have a million seventy thousand uninsured North Carolinians, one of the highest uninsured populations. And so in North Carolina, we're paying between eight and 12% higher premium costs because we have such a high uninsured population. I've got rural hospitals teetering on the verge of bankruptcy because they're treating people

in the emergency room and not getting reimbursed for it. And so among the many issues, I mean, I've got 85,000 opioid dependent North Carolinians that don't have care today because we haven't expanded Medicaid. Guess why we haven't expanded Medicaid? Tom Tillis was speaker and he passed a law. He's proud of having passed a law that stands in the way of Governor Roy Cooper. That seems like a good issue for the general election now. Oh, we're already talking about it. We're already talking about it. Look, this same guy that owned Capitol Hill has voted repeatedly to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I mean, that puts 1.7 million North Carolinians at risk because of pre-existing

conditions. I read that you filled out your absentee ballot for Pete Buttigieg, your fellow veteran when he was in the race. Who would you rather see at the top of the ticket in November, Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders? I can work with anybody. You can work with that. That's the right answer. Well, it's true. Look, I'm focused on building a campaign that's going to connect with North Carolinians. And I'm prepared for a day where I am able to work with whoever's in the White House, either party, and either one of the Democrats that are still in this race. So I will see a play out. I'm going to support the ticket this fall. And let's see where the rest of the country goes with this.

I asked folks on Twitter for questions for you. And I got this one a couple of times. What is your go-to order at cookout? Oh, my God. Are you kidding? Cheeseburger, dude. Cheeseburger. Bacon cheeseburger.

OK. You know, look, we got some. Elijah said it's a tray, right? That's what you're. Yeah, well, dude. Cheeseburger. Bacon cheeseburger. Okay. You know, look, we got some. Elijah says to Trey, right? That's what you're. Yeah, well, look. We have another North Carolina fan right here. So, look, we got some good eating establishments in North Carolina. You certainly do.

Got a little Bojangles if you ever get. Love Bojangles. I've been to a Bojangles. Oh, come on, man. Come on. But I'll tell you what I'm an ambassador for. What's that? North Carolina barbecue. Yeah. Lexington, that's my on, man. Come on. But I'll tell you what I'm an ambassador for. What's that? North Carolina barbecue.

Yeah. Lexington, that's my hometown, man. We are the pork barbecue capital of the world. And in politics, I mean, politics is serious business in North Carolina. Yeah. But East versus West barbecue, that's... That's where it gets intense, right? It gets really intense.

I mean, it's not quite as bad as carolina versus duke but you know i won't even get into that yeah yeah um cal cunningham thank you for joining us and uh best of luck in the race this fall john uh happy to be on here upgrade my race this is this is where we're going to decide and tell your listeners get tuned into this race at cal for nc.com this is where uh when we win this we win the senate well it's one of the six states we're going to have in our adopt a State program. And so we got to get a bunch of people to adopt North Carolina. And you can be the ambassador for North Carolina trying to get our listeners to adopt that as one of their six states.

I'm going to be the senator for North Carolina. Perfect. Thanks, John. All right. Take care. Thanks to Cal Cunningham for joining us. And now an interview that Lovett had with the hosts of our new sports podcast, Hall of Shame, Rachel Bonetta and Retina Fruchbaum. Thank you for being here. We were so excited about launching the show. I've been listening to the episodes. I love them. It's great because this

is a sports show for everyone, not just sports fans. For example, Tommy and I both listened. There was an episode about figure skating that one of us loved. There was an episode about a football that another one of us loved. And you'll have to decide who loved which. So, Rachna, Rachel, can you tell us a little bit about this show and why people are going to love it? Yeah, for sure. So basically, Rachna and I are huge sports fans. And there's so many delicious scandals that happen in the sports world. And we're going back in time and like rehashing all of them.

Yeah. And we feel like sometimes they're not available to everyone because it feels like I got to know about sports. But the truth is, they're just like awesome, interesting, funny stories that are worth telling. And I wouldn't want any like non-sports fans to feel alienated or feel dumb going into them because it's not like that. We're not getting into the nitty gritty of like plays or anything like that. it's more so like i show up russia and i are going out for a drink and i'm like holy shit have you ever heard this story it's like there's an excitement to show up

and tell her these like bonkers stories so what are some of the stories people can look forward to all right well there's one that i loved about rosie ruiz who basically is a cheater yeah a marathon cheater i don't want to like no spoilers she she she rode a subway to the finish line and then got so like also our hero i don't know i respect it yeah the confidence that that requires yeah and then yeah i'm you know what i was just about to spoil the fun forget it no just keep them keep them wanting more there's also the story of um 10 cent beer night where cleveland indians offered 10 cent beer so i you can figure it out yeah shit got shit got real a bunch of people from cleveland give given essentially free beer yeah while watching

their team play. Yeah. Obviously like sports right now, there's a lot of political aspects to it, whether it's, you know, head injuries in the NFL. For sure. Or any of the other sundry sports political intersections that people that pay attention to that part of the feed could talk about. Like how political is the show?

We, it really like like it's like organic because so often these stories go in that direction it's just like there's an inherent well there's just so many things going on in the sports world i mean like colin kaepernick lebron james and china there's a million things we're not we're never going to ignore those things and even in the figure skating square which story which like ostensibly is not about politics but like it veers into it so We talk about Russia. It's all over the map. Listen, Russia,

we talk about Russia a lot because they're just all over. They're just somehow embroiled in every single sports scandal that we found. So it comes up. They've got a penchant for fixing things. They do. They like to get in there.

You guys haven't recorded yet, but there was that, they were passing the blood test through the walls during one of the Olympics. I just respect the hustle. There's something about it where it's too, it's crafty. It's the most low-stakes shit, and you're like, God, you could just love the hustle of it. Absolutely. Gold medals are not that important.

Like, who gives a shit? On this podcast? To a government. And yet. I also want people to know a little bit about you uh rachel like you come from uh the sports and comedy world rechna you're a just like crush it you're a crusher crushing a comedy writer a com a comedy writer who crushes hey man thank you it was easy I nailed it I didn't start comedy writing until I was a little older

until after I had my kid which is awesome wow what did you do before I was like an assistant in film development and then I stayed home with my kid for a little and then I was like I really don't want to be stayed home so I started writing and then you went on Parks and Rec.

Wasn't that like your first writing job? Yeah, lucky bitch. That's pretty incredible. I know. Yeah. What about you, Rachel? I've been covering sports for like the last eight years, I think. Kind of going around to all these different sports, football, soccer, basketball, a little bit of everything.

And I'm from Toronto. I'm Canadian. Yeah. That's really all I need to know. And I'm from Cleveland. So sports is sort of baked in. Yeah. No matter what. Yeah.

You were at the 10-step beer night. You nearly died. I'm a Highlander, so it was in 1974. She was either there or conceived there. She's a Highlander. She grabbed a 10-step beer, and just fell down uh onto the third baseline screaming there could be only one and that's why rachel picked me so that's yeah to be your co-host it worked it all worked out i i love sports because i think for my dad as an immigrant

uh connecting to sports was a way to like connect to this country oh that's awesome so like in our family is like so huge i feel like it's like common for immigrants because it's like a international language. I will say, I will add one more thing. I think it's rad that two women are doing a podcast about sports because I really don't think I work in sports and have worked in sports for a really long time. And it's not very often that you see women, you know,

sharing their opinions and insight and being smart about and funny about sports. So I would just, you know, force that onto your listeners. Yeah. We just got really serious. Both of us were like, I want just, you know, force that onto your listeners. And it's cool. Yeah. We just got really serious. Both of us were like,

I want to, I had something deep I wanted to share. Yeah. I just wanted people to hear from you because I think once they get to know you, they're going to understand why this is going to be everyone's favorite new podcast. I know that when I listened to the most recent episode,

I didn't get out of my car until it was over, which I think is a test. That's so nice. Yeah. And I also think they're super digestible. They're 20, 25 minutes long. Yeah. And hopefully people will just want to keep on going

to the next one. Yeah. That's the dream. Thanks for having us on here. Thanks for caring us. I just want people- Are you our boss? This isn't for you.

This isn't for you. This is for the audience to understand how good this show is going to be. and i hope everybody goes to subscribe to hall of shame right now all right i want this thing to rocket up the charts okay obviously i am still a little sore from what happened with love it or leave it in s town because love it or leave it was never able to move above s town but i want to get hollow shame's got to get to number one let's do it this is a sports podcast number one yeah it's so fun but there are two episodes you can check out right now that are up and uh you're it's not

don't do it as a favor to me do it as a favor to yourselves this is not for us also i will say you'll be an awesome party guest or dinner date because you're going to have crazy stories in the vault that you can just whip out at any time. Yeah, when you're sitting across first date, you're Raya. Genuine monster. Fedora. Perfect. Entertain yourself by recounting it. Have you ever heard of

You just made me feel great as I entered single life for the first time in 20 years. There you go. Wow. And also, just at the very end of this interview, one sentence that opens up a whole world of information. That's so true. I don't know why I threw that in there like a weirdo. Millions of people are now going to know this.

Subscribe to Hall of Shame. Retchna needs this. Do it. Don't do it for Lovett. Don't do it for Rachel. Don't do it for yourself. Do it for me. Yeah.

Thank you. Hall of Shame. Hall of Shame. It's out now. Thanks to Cal C. Yeah. Thank you. All the shame. All the shame. Down now. Thanks to Cal Cunningham and Rachel Bonetta and Retina Fruckbaum for joining us today. That's all we have. Everyone, you know, wash your hands. Don't touch your face.

Don't touch your face. Don't touch your face. Don't touch your 401k. Don't check your 401k. That's not my joke. Don't check your 401k. That's someone else's joke from Twitter. You know what?

We'll all laugh anyway. Bye. Bye. Pod Save America's someone else's joke from Twitter. You know what? We'll all laugh anyway. Bye. Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.